Needles and Other Dangerous Things
by unholymountain
Summary: Stiles goes with Malia to the doctor's office for her first check-up since becoming a human again. She's not the one that needs support.


Stiles pulled up to the doctor's office, deftly maneuvering his Jeep into one of the few free spaces. "You ready?" he asked, looking over at the girl across from him.

Malia had resisted going for as long as possible, arguing not unreasonably that with supernatural healing, most immunizations and normal medicine were unnecessary. But the high school had been requesting medical records for months, and was threatening to not allow her to come anymore if the information wasn't in. ("Then I won't go to school," Malia had said rather triumphantly, after an exhausting bout of algebra — it took approximately one hour and thirty-seven minutes of convincing to get her to agree to come.)

She sighed. "Let's get it over with." As they got out of the car and walked towards the entrance, he took her hand.

"Hey, it'll be fine. I'll be right next to you the whole time, okay?" She nodded. They approached the front desk. "Hi, we have an appointment for Malia Tate?" The lady frowned, making a few clicks on her computer. Stiles leaned over the desk, trying to get a look. "Is there a problem?"

She squinted through her glasses at the screen. "We have the appointment today, but she hasn't been in for a physical in…eight years."

"You must have heard about it," Stiles said. "Girl found in the woods after being missing for nearly a decade, reunited with father?" The lady shook her head uncertainly. "C'mon, it was all over the news."

She shrugged and motioned at another person. "Sheila will take you to your room."

Sheila led them to a small room with an exam table and a few chairs in it. "The doctor will be with you in a few minutes," she said, before disappearing out the door. Malia sat gingerly on the exam bed and Stiles pulled up a chair next to it.

"Hello! Malia, right? I'll be handling your physical today." The doctor, an attractive middle-aged Asian woman with a reassuring grace about her motions, approached with a clipboard and a crowd of medical students following her. "Because you haven't had a check up since you were nine, you're going to need quite a few vaccinations aside from the normal physical."

"Vaccinations?" Malia asked, a hint of worry in her voice.

Stiles mirrored her trepidation. "Like, shots? With… needles?"

The doctor sounded a bit puzzled. "Yes, shots with needles. Is that going to be a problem?"

Stiles shook his head. "Uh, no. Not at all." As the doctor left to go prepare the vaccinations, Malia turned toward Stiles.

"What's the problem?" When he tried to downplay it, she wouldn't let him. "You're radiating fear right now."

He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm just not the biggest fan of needles, that's all. They kind of freak me out." She interlaced her fingers with his and they sat in silence until the doctor came back.

"I'm Doctor Sung, by the way. I feel like you should always know someone's name before they stick you with a sharp object. It's just polite," she said with a wink, before settling into the chair next to Malia. "And you are…?"

"Stiles," he responded. "I'm Malia's, um, friend."

The doctor beamed at him. "Well, Stiles, I think it's wonderful of you to show up and keep her company for this. Some people get a little squeamish with these things. Now," she said, brandishing a needle (a little too cavalierly, in Stiles' opinion), "without further ado, here's your shot!"

Malia eyed the needle warily as Doctor Sung brought it to her arm. Anything that made Stiles as nervous as he was right now was probably something to be frightened of — after all, he often waded into the face of danger with only a bat! She turned to look at him for a second and felt a prick on her arm. She whipped her head back around. Doctor Sung withdrew the needle.

"That was it?"

The doctor laughed. "Yep! Not so bad, huh? Only three more!"

At the words "three more" Stiles had gripped her hand, hard. She pressed a kiss to his cheek.

"Stiles. You can step outside if you want. I'm really okay." His face was even paler than usual, but he shook his head.

"I'm staying. You've never done this before, okay? I want to be here for you."

By the fourth shot, he was holding onto her hand for dear life. He already had to let go for a few terrifying seconds when she switched arms after the second shot. But he did it. They were done.

"Well, I must say, Malia, you've been a wonderful patient. Now all we have to do is take a little blood and you'll be on your way!" Doctor Sung's voice was entirely too cheery.

Stiles looked up, slowly. "Blood test?" He watched in horror as one of the medical students lined up not one, not two, but three vials in preparation. Doctor Sung stuck the needle in the inside of Malia's elbow and her blood neatly channeled out of it into the first of the containers.

That was the last thing Stiles saw before everything went black.

"Stiles! Stiles!" He opened his eyes and looked up to see Malia's face hovering above his. She looked worried.

"…Malia? What happened?" As he started to get a better hold on his surroundings, he realized his head was lying on her lap.

Doctor Sung was the one to answer. "You fainted," she said, a trace of mirth in her voice. "Malia here was quite alarmed. She ripped out the needle and caught you before you fell! I don't think I've ever seen someone move so fast." She smiled. "I think you owe her a thank you."

Stiles glanced at Malia, whose eyes hadn't left his face. She was obviously very distressed. "You just…collapsed," she said, tracing his cheekbone with her hand. "I didn't know what was going on."

"I'm fine," Stiles said, trying to reassure her. "Seeing your blood in that tube made me a little woozy is all. Don't worry about it." She blinked, at least partially mollified. "And thanks for catching me."

She lifted him up easily, sitting him back down on the chair and returning to her former position as well. "Sorry for tearing the thing out. We can try again now."

Doctor Sung seemed more amused than annoyed. "Stay in your seat, huh, hotshot?" she asked Stiles with a wink, before getting out a new needle. "Malia's blood test, take two!"

The rest of the checkup past without incident, except for one harrowing moment when a student checking Malia's reflexes got a little too close to her leg. After the student hit her knee lightly, her leg shot out with werecoyote strength and catapulted him across the room, slamming him into the cabinets on the other side. (Thankfully, he was embarrassed enough not to mention it to anyone else and just marked down that her body was functioning at full capacity.)

On their way out, Doctor Sung offered them both lollipops. "They're normally for the younger patients," she said. "But I think you two deserve them."

Stiles drummed his fingers across the wheel. "Sorry about…what happened in there. I didn't mean to scare you."

Malia stared at him from the passenger seat. "It was only because of blood?"

"Yeah. Well, that and the needles. They just make me feel icky. Squeamish. Not good. I mean, I get that blood is inside us all the time, and that's fine, it's just when…ugh. Actually, no, that's not fine. That's disgusting. Why did I say that?" He trailed off as he realized the werecoyote's shoulders were shaking with laughter. "Hey, serious issues over here. It's not funny!" But soon, he had joined her.

After they recovered from their amusement, Malia looked over at him with soft eyes. "You wouldn't last long in the wild."

"Oh?" answered Stiles, mildly affronted.

"No." Malia was blunt as ever. "But I would protect you."


End file.
